Does Anyone Remember An Oxyweld?

T

toolman

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Back in my high school years I had a portable cutting torch/welding setup that used (I think) a butane or propane cylinder and a pellet that you lit that poduced oxygen. You could heat up a piece of steel to cutting temp and then shut off the gas and use just the oxygen from the burning pellet to cut with.
I really have no desire to have another one, but it was pretty ingenious and I'd at least like to know the name.
 
Never mind, I just found it. It was a SolidOx. Now, I would probly run over it, shoot it, or burn it, but at the time it was extremely cool. I remember cutting out part of a guard for my bench grinder and a mounting bracket for the light switch in my huge 4'x8' shop. I remember the pellets not lasting hardly any time, not being able to stop them if you finished before they did, and a very unique odor that they created when burning. If I remember right , the kit I bought cost around $30 and I thought I was the baddest SOB in town becuase I was the only 16 yr. old with his very own cutting torch/welder!
 
I remember those. I was probably 9 or 10 when my friends dad bought one. We watched him try to get it to work, wich it never did, and learned some bery colorful language.

Sent from somewhere in East Texas Jake Parker
 
I had one also and I never liked using it. Problems with the pellets was the biggest thing. If they weren't kept dry they wouldn't burn right and they were expensive. I remember having trouble with the filter in the burn chamber and the rubber stopper would blow right of of the cylinder in the middle of a cut. It did OK on exhaust systems but it was frustrating and time consuming. I also invented some new phrases while using it.
 
I remember having one, Lived in a area that had a lot of humidity and like jim18655 said they did not work properly once damp. Then could not find any more of stuff in my area so, I had to use something else. Big bottle of Ox and a bottle of propane.
 
I had one. Never tryed to cut with it but did do quite a bit of brazing.
 
I too had one of these Solidox torches, back in the mid 70s, after I had gotten out of the Navy. I agree, it was a waste of time and money, I maybe did one brazing job with it.
On our submarine, we used bigger versions of the Solidox's tablets as one of our sources of oxygen. As I recall, each oxygen "candle" came in a tin can, and weighed about 25 lbs. Burning one gave us about 100 cubic feet of O2, about enough for the whole crew for an hour. (We didn't have the Oxygen Generator, which works by electrolysis (A.k.a "The Bomb").
 
Had one in the late sixties-early seventies.Used it to do some silver brazing on copper tube under a kitchen unit. It somehow fell over and started a fairly good fire. Still have my Plumbing license by some stroke of good fortune. Sold it to a very dislikeable fellow who deserved it more than me.
John.
 
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